It was hard not to be struck by Neville
Lawrence’s sickened weariness last night, as he justified for the thousandth time his
family and pointed to the obvious denial of justice. Here in the Newsnight
studio he faced yet again the face of police intransigence claiming that the
Lawrence family were spied upon at the height of the criminal case to prevent
“serious public disorder”.
The assumption from the Met that appears
unbreakable is that a black London family cannot be entirely normal,
hard-working, decent and honest. There is an ever present suspicion they must
be in some way linked to criminality or extremism.
For those familiar with the detail of the
Macpherson Inquiry published in 1998, there was always some missing gaps which
were only likely to explained by corruption. Although the actions of the
Special Demonstration Squad were deemed “out of control” they still liaised
with the top of the shop at the Met even with a member of the Macpherson
Inquiry Panel. The case was handled with such willful ineptitude, it would be
practically impossible to explain it otherwise. The examples in the report are
legion.
When the five had been named as killers of
Stephen Lawrence by multiple witnesses, the Met had easily enough 'reasonable suspicion' to make
arrests but did not. Instead, they belatedly set up an incompetent surveillance
operation. There was no radio contact with other units and no back up. The
police simply photographed the suspects disposing of plastic bags full of
evidence. It seemed to me, by having a flawed surveillance operation, they wanted to
allow themselves plausible deniability that they had acted while still ensuring
no prosecution would be successful.
The Home Secretary may find the conclusions
of Mark Ellison QC’s report, “profoundly shocking” but establishing another
Inquiry is far from being heralded as the first one was, set up by Jack Straw after 97
election. Justice has leaked away. Men of dishonour have left the force, or the
country and naturally some have died. Much of the documentation was shredded
ten years ago.
By the conclusion of the next Inquiry there
will be no prosecutions. The Lawrence family know that. And also that secrets
will still remain buried. As Neville himself said, “while all this has been
happening, our family has been destroyed.”
